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Hi Everyone,
The chamomile is blooming in the garden, so this afternoon I harvested some of the flowers and some of the strawberries growing in the greenhouse in the GreenStalk Vertical Planters. I also picked a jar full of flowers and came inside and Mom and I had “Tea”. We pulled out the china and the linens and we made two cups of chamomile tea and split a bowl of strawberries and cream drizzled with honey. Then we sat on the porch and enjoyed tea time for the very first time in our life! When I was a little girl I had tea parties in my bedroom on the floor with my girlfriends—and we used the antique child’s tea set that my Grandmother gave me (it was hers when she was a child), but Mom and I have never had tea. The only adult tea party I ever attended was for me—when all my friends threw me a surprise 40th Birthday Tea Party in our garden. It was most elegant! Tonight was special though as just Mom and I sat on the porch and got sticky fingers as we ate our strawberries and cream that was drizzled in honey. There is just something special about using china and having tea together.
I will admit that the cream tasted O so good—but oh me oh my, is it ever a chore to make. Bottling milk usually takes about 20 minutes—but creaming takes an hour and then you have to wash all the parts to the creamers (all 50 pieces). We only cream when we have more milk than what we can sell. Sometimes during the year (when the cows have calves), we can control the amount of milk by taking the calves away at night, or leaving the calves on their mama’s at night. Right now though, all the calves are over six months old and they are weaned—so we have lots of milk. That will not last very long though, as come April 1st we have to start drying off cows in order to give them a 6 to 8 week break before they calve (they get their maternity leave before they calve). I am hoping that when we dry off the cows the difference in milk volume will just mean that we do not have to cream—not that we do not have enough milk. So far we have four fresh cows, and according to the calendar we should have about two cows calving every month with four or five cows calving per month in the summer—that is when we will really be creaming unless we get more customers. Farming always has its peaks and valleys. Grocery stores have truly spoiled us when it comes to availability (well at least they used to before Covid and the supply chain crisis). In reality food has seasons. There are strawberries in spring, peaches in summer and apples in fall. Sweet corn grows in the summer, but lettuce will not. Cows have milk for 10 months out of the year, and unless you have more than one cow (and they are on different lactation schedules), then you will be without milk for two months out of every year. We like to have a few cows calving every month so that we always have enough milk--which is why we leave our bull with our cows. Some farmers only put the bull in with the cows for about two months so that all the cows calve at the same time—but that also means that all the cows will be dry at the same time.
While we managed to cream two days last week, we only managed to make it to the garden once (well Mom made it twice, because while we creamed on Monday she went to the garden to weed the sugar snap peas). I have so much to get ready in the garden for I need to start planting the spring crops Monday, April 4. There is weeding, mulching, prepping and planting to be done—and not enough time or hands. Our tiller is broke, and I didn’t get the beds tarped that I wanted to get tarped—so there are more weeds than I want to deal with. One bed just needs tilled under (the weeds are small since the sheep ate them down a month ago), but the other bed has tall thick weeds that have to be pulled out buy hand. Then there are the cut flower garden rows that are not really bad, but do need to be weeded of the nut grass. Where the squashes and cantaloupe will grow—needs weeded, composted, and the walkways mulched. I guess you shall have to stay tuned to see just what does get done—maybe some weeding elves will show up.
Last week we had two separate families show up to purchase items—that also ended up going on a farm tour. The first family is just starting their own farm not far from us and they were so excited to see our portable chicken houses (hoop houses that we raise our broiler chickens and turkeys in, train puppies in, house calves and lambs in—a grand multi-purpose building). They were fixing to go home and build a low to the ground square chicken tractor—that you have to crawl around on the ground to get your birds out of, and then they saw our hoop houses and quickly had a change of plans. It was so nice to see their enthusiasm and their eagerness to learn—and it was from them (and a few other visits from other newbie farmers) that gave me the idea to do a “You Can Farm in Florida! Seminar” here on the farm. When I mentioned the idea to Mom and Papa they asked—who would teach it, and I told them that we would. It wasn’t too hard to get them on board and by Saturday night all the planning was done and the “invitations” were sent out by email and Facebook. You can check it out here: You Can Farm in Florida!
The second group that came by, one of the ladies had purchased a turkey from us at Thanksgiving and had brought her son and daughter-in-law from Chicago with her. This time she brought her husband and her sister’s family (who had two boys who had never been on a farm before). Those boys were just as excited as if they were at an amusement park. Their enthusiasm skyrocketed as I took them on a ride in the Gravely around the farm. When we got to the chicken tractor where the laying hens roost and lay their eggs they were thrilled to be able to go inside the house and peak into the nesting boxes and see all the eggs—and they were awed at how many there were.
We were blessed with another three inches of rain last week over a two day period. Wednesday’s are short work days, so the rain was no problem—but Thursday’s are long work days. Steve told us when he got here that he was more than willing to go home once the milking equipment was all washed up—he didn’t want to work in the rain. We told him that he wouldn’t need to do that, and that we wouldn’t be working in the rain either. The morning would be spent milking, doing our chores and creaming. When it is raining outside there is no need to complain about creaming! The afternoon would be spent organizing in the walk in cooler and freezer for there was a beef to pick up from the butcher—finally we have beef again! Needless to say, we were cold all day!
We are very thankful for all the rain because it makes the grasses turn green and the winter grasses grow. We only have three rolls of hay left, so it has been a blessing to have green grass for the animals to eat. Tuesday morning all the animals were sent out to pasture to stay—they wouldn’t be coming back into the barn at night. Now the sheep are following behind the Jersey milk cows and the chickens are following behind them. The young heifers and the older heifers joined each other out in the small grass paddocks where Mom rotates them most of the year. Two of the heifers were old enough to join the milking herd—not because they are in milk (because they are not), but so that they could get bred by the bull and get trained to come into the milking parlor to eat—long before they calve. They were not scheduled to join the herd until April 1st and May 1st, but since they were bullying the youngest heifers and not letting them in the feed and hay troughs we decided to go ahead and throw them in with the bull. For the last few months we have been bringing in one or two heifers every month so that Lord willing, next winter we will have more milk than we had last winter. We have brought in six heifers so far and three of them have been easy as pie to train—one of them a little too easy! Her name is Macy, and her mother’s name is Ellie Mae. Ellie Mae is our favorite cow to show people that our cows know their name and come when called—just check out this video. Ellie Mae is always full speed ahead when it comes to coming into the parlor to eat, and when she has licked her platter clean she exits her stall and checks to see if there is another empty stall that she can enter and clean up that platter too. Ellie Mae is now 15 years old and is beginning to show signs of getting old, but I have a feeling that when she finally leaves us she will not be missed as much as I thought—because her daughter Macy is just like her! I am not sure that Macy knows her name yet, but she sure understands when the gate is open—for that means “Enter”. She enters very quickly (and sometimes it is a race between her and her mother). The only problem is that Macy has chosen which stall she likes the best, and it isn’t the right stall. Macy comes through the gate real quick and if there is not a second person to guide her into the correct stall, before I can get the gate closed (so the rest of the herd doesn’t come in), Macy has headed into the stall of her choice—which is the middle opening where I sit to milk the cows and which leads to the back room where the big feed can is that is full of alfalfa pellets. She much prefers to eat out of the can than out of a trough—there is more in the can. Thankfully Macy is so calm that I can squeeze past her and get in front of her and push her back out of my stall and direct her to one of the empty stalls. One morning she finished eating in her stall, then immediately backed out and before I knew anything she was walking past me to get to the feed can in the back room (I was sitting on my stool milking when she squeezed past me). One morning I checked to see if she was around—so that I could rope off my stall, but I didn’t see her, so I opened the wire gate and in came Sally, Dijon the bull, America, and Ellie Mae—but as Dijon and America were coming in Macy came running up and squeezed in with them. All four stalls were full, and of course Macy was in the back feed room. I knew that if I got Macy out of the feed room that I had no place to put her and I couldn’t by myself shoo her back out with the waiting herd. So I tied a rope behind Macy so that she could not come back out on top of me and I sat down to milk while I waited for Steve and Mom to come back from the heifer field. Macy was quite content, and by the time Steve and Mom got back Dijon had left his stall so they were able to move Macy from my stall to Dijon’s empty stall. Most heifers we have to train to come in, but we shall have to teach Macy that there are four stalls to enter—not six (four milking stalls and two feed rooms).
That is it for this month, so until next month I shall be . . .
Serving you with Gladness,
Tiare